


Perish Twice

by DarkAndDeep



Series: No One Left Behind [2]
Category: Farscape
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 08:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18070229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAndDeep/pseuds/DarkAndDeep
Summary: This story is a sequel to my first Farscape fanfic, "No One Left Behind", which was written in response to the "Dad's Worst Nightmares" challenge. That one was a hypothetical season finale scenario for Season 3, written before the broadcast of episodes 319-322. A hypothetical finale, though, implies the existence of an equally hypothetical season premiere, so that is what this is. Many thanks to my beta readers, Wild Violets, Maayan, and A. X. Zanier.





	Perish Twice

 

 _Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice.  
From what I've tasted of desire  
I hold with those who favor fire.  
But if it had to perish twice,  
I think I know enough of hate  
To say that for destruction ice  
Is also great  
And would suffice.  
            -- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"  
_  
  
  
The mood of Talyn's crew was subdued when they finally found Moya, over two monens after setting out to search for her.  They'd won. Scorpius was dead. It ought to have been a time for celebration, had they not also had to explain the absence of John Crichton to his friends.   
  
Again.   
  
At least this time is wasn't his death the were reporting.  He'd snuck away from Talyn without saying a word to anyone, about a monen after they killed Scorpius, leaving behind only a short recorded message to Aeryn.  He'd found his way home, he said, and since the universe was once again safe from wormhole warfare, he had apparently felt he had nothing else in the Uncharted Territories worth passing up that chance for.  
  
Nothing, and no one.  
  
Aeryn played John's final message to the entire crew.  The all claimed to be happy for him, said they were glad he'd made it home, but the words rang hollow. Not an arn went by in the next few solar days without someone wishing he was there, whether it be for a shoulder to cry on, a pair of hands to help with the work, or that irrepressible sense of humor that had so often rejuvenated their spirits even as it baffled their microbes.  And yet, as much as they missed him, they were also uniformly irritated and hurt that he hadn't waited, hadn't given them the chance to say goodbye.  
  
Talyn and Moya hung together in space for several solar days, since their crews lacked the will to direct them.  It was Rygel, of course, ever practical, who finally pointed out that they were running low on supplies.   
  
As they traveled slowly in search of a nearby commerce planet that would fulfill their needs, Aeryn wandered through Moya's halls, as distant and silent as she had been the first time Talyn had returned.   
   
She made it clear that she wanted to be left alone,  and her friends respected that wish as much as possible.  During times when she wasn't needed for maintenance duties or to stand a watch in Command, she wandered Moya's halls like a ghost, almost at random. For days, though, she managed to avoid walking down a specific corridor.  Then, whether by accident or unconscious intent, she finally found herself standing outside Crichton's quarters.   
  
Aeryn paused for a moment with her hand hovering over the door control.   She hadn't been inside this room since before the two ships -- and the two Crichtons -- had split up at Kanvia.  At the time, she'd still been trying to wrap her mind around the concept that the man she loved was now two men, and had tossed a green shirt at one so she'd have a way to tell them apart.  Not long afterwards, she and the other Crichton had gone to Talyn and had quickly forgotten the one they'd left behind, alone and dressed in green.   
  
Part of her feared what she would feel if she crossed the threshold, though she tried to convince herself that she ought to feel nothing.  Eventually, steeling herself, she triggered the mechanism and entered the room.  
  
Almost every item John Crichton had acquired in his three cycles among them was still here.  He'd taken next to nothing along except his module when they set out after Scorpius on Talyn.  
  
Part of her was surprised he'd left so much behind.  Her John had brought most of his prized possessions with him to Talyn when they left.  But perhaps that was the reason -- this one had faced the loss of those same precious things already, had accepted it and moved on, in spite of their subsequent return to his possession.  Many of them were still stuffed in the black duffel bag they'd brought back from Talyn, which now sat neglected in a shadowed corner of the room.  Perhaps in his mind those objects, like Aeryn's heart, would forever afterwards belong to his dead twin.  
  
Circling the room, Aeryn paused to brush her hand along the pillow on the bunk.  Lifting it, she brought it to her face and, with eyes closed, breathed in the lingering, familiar scent that remained in the fabric.  It was faint -- he'd been gone a long time -- but it was still there.  
  
As she went to replace the pillow on the bunk, she noticed the book that had been hidden underneath.  Crichton's notebook.  It wasn't the original one, the one her John had brought with him to Talyn, which now contained stars Aeryn had helped to name and lessons in written English for her to study -- that one she'd kept, coincidentally under her own pillow in her quarters.  This one was newer, less worn, probably created to replace the one that had been lost.  
  
Had he left this behind on purpose, or simply forgotten to take it from its hiding place when they left for the command carrier?  Aeryn flipped to the last page with written text on it.  Her lessons in reading and speaking English had been too brief for her to be able to decipher all the words, but she recognized a few.  Dad.  Aeryn.  Home.  It seemed to be a letter to his father, in the manner of all the verbal messages he'd recorded before the power cells in his magnetic recording device ran out.  
  
This was a last link to the man she'd loved.  Or tried to love.  In his absence, she was realizing that this second loss was, in some ways, as bad as the first.  
  
_She takes time._ She'd heard her John say that to his counterpart through Stark's mask.  Crichton had taken the advice to heart and hadn't pushed her. But now she was realizing that she should have heeded it herself.  She hadn't given herself enough time to heal before trying to recreate what she'd lost, and that failure had cost them both.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
One of the first things John had done when he arrived on the surface of the planet he'd picked out was to say goodbye to Winona and pitch the pulse pistol into the lake.  He could only think of two possible uses for it here: self-defense or self-destruction.   The former seemed pretty pointless, given his situation.  
  
And as for the latter, he'd turned away from that back in orbit. The trials and tragedies of his life in the past three years had been enough to drive him to the brink of suicide a couple of times, but something had always pulled him back. His mother's example, her determination to live every day she was given to the fullest, in spite of the pain, had always stood before him as a model to aspire to.  She'd been gone for almost seven years, now, and John still didn't want to disappoint her.  He didn't trust his resolve to hold firm, however, if temptation was staring him in the face as things got harder, so Winona had to go.  
  
He spent most of his days hiking through the woods, or sitting on the shore of the lake, a jerry-rigged fishing pole by his side, soaking up the warm sun and listening to the strange songs of the local fauna.  When it rained, he took refuge inside the module, and at night he slept beneath its sheltering wings.  
  
It amazed him to realize, as it gradually eased, how much stress and tension he'd been living with for the past couple of years.  The peace and quiet soothed his battered spirit, healing his soul even as his body gave out bit by bit.   
  
To keep his mind occupied, he studied the world around him with a scientist's eye.  His training had been in physics, not biology, but he hadn't dated Alex for as long as he had without learning something about her field, too.  Though her post-graduate study had been in medicine, she was a biologist first, and she'd been as fascinated by the intricacies of the living world as he had been by the stars above his head.  They'd shared a love of the outdoors, of pristine wilderness and unspoiled places, which had formed part of a solid foundation for their relationship, until their disparate dreams had torn them apart.   
  
Here on this alien world he watched the ebb and flow of life that was so different from what he'd known, and yet was strangely familiar in some ways, too.  Where four limbs had been the standard design for the higher land creatures on Earth, six seemed to be the predominant pattern here.  Except for that oddity, however, the power of convergent evolution had created a number of recognizable types: winged and feathered creatures like birds, hoofed ruminants, shy rodents, and the occasional familiar-looking predator.  Often, usually at sunrise or sunset, John would catch a glimpse of some local animals coming down to the water for a drink.  The sheer variety and strange beauty of the parade made for a fine show.   
  
One creature in particular seemed intrigued by this curious stranger who had set up residence on the shore.  It was vaguely canine, with a long snout, sharp teeth, and intelligent-looking eyes, while its movements, on occasion, suggested the litheness of a cat, smooth and supple.  The four rear-most limbs were powerful and ideal for running, while the forward pair had longer, opposing digits to allow for grasping and manipulating food, similar to a raccoon, with dangerous-looking claws.  
  
Each day the creature would approach the lake shore for a drink, emerging just a bit closer to his camp than the day before.  Crichton sensed that he was being watched, but not as a threat or as potential prey. The eyes that gazed at him held a significant measure of simple curiosity.  He started leaving the remains of his fish dinners a short distance away, and the food was always gone by morning.  
  
Crichton decided to name the creature Anubis, after the jackal-god of ancient Egypt who judged the souls of the dead and guided them to the afterlife.  A proper companion for him in these last days, he thought whimsically.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Aeryn sat alone in a refreshment house on the commerce planet, waiting for the others to finish their errands and return.  She was trying to ignore the empty place across from her, the seat that in the past would have been filled by one particular figure, smiling at her over the top of his drink.  
  
Though her mind was preoccupied, her senses were still primed to taut attention; when Crichton's name was mentioned in a quiet conversation on the other side of the crowded and noisy establishment, she heard it clearly and turned to stare.  After a moment, she rose and drifted across the room to listen more closely to the conversation that had caught her notice.  
  
"--and then he plops down a pile of brandor tiles on the counter and orders a sakma-load of food cubes.  _Food cubes!_ " expounded one of the half-inebriated merchants at the corner table.  
  
"C'mon, Grivch, yer imaginin' things.  That couldn'a been Crichton," one of his companions slurred doubtfully.  
  
"'M tellin' you, it was _him!_   Seen his image a hundred times on the wanted beacons and such...and he just walks into my store like he was anybody...."   Suddenly, the speaker became aware of his newly-acquired audience and looked up at the Sebacean woman who was looming over him.  "C'n I help ya?" he asked peevishly.  
  
Aeryn's voice was dangerous, hard.  "I heard you claiming you'd done business with John Crichton.  When would that have been?"  
  
"Three weekens ago, 'f it's any business of yours."  
  
"Impossible," Aeryn stated emphatically, definitively.  
  
"Toldja," said Grivch's companion blearily.  
  
"And how would you know?" Grivch asked her, ignoring his friend.  
  
Aeryn leaned down, putting her face mere denches from the drunken merchant.  "Because, frellchik, Crichton returned to his home planet over two monens ago."  
  
The merchant began to protest some more, but then froze as two new figures approached from behind the woman, one tall and menacing, the other lithe and petite.  They said nothing, but it was obvious they were prepared to defend the Sebacean in whatever argument she was pursuing, no questions asked.  Grivch started in sudden recognition -- a Luxan, a Nebari, and a Sebacean, together?  How could this be anything but the crew of the legendary escaped leviathan?   A group whose exploits included the destruction of a shadow depository, a secret Peacekeeper base and, as rumor had begun to whisper, a full command carrier?   
  
"W-well, I... obviously, I must have been... I mean, you would know, wouldn't you?  It must have been... someone else... just looked a bit like him.  Yes, that must be it...."  The man babbled on, retracting everything he'd said, as well as several things he'd never said.  
  
Aeryn nodded and turned, leading D'Argo and Chiana away from the merchant, who was still verbally cowering.  They looked at Aeryn questioningly, wondering what that had all been about, but she just shook her head, refusing to explain. For someone who'd spent just three cycles in this part of the universe, Crichton had certainly made a reputation for himself.  And it seemed that reputation was likely to grow further, even in his absence.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  


 

John quickly lost track of how many days he'd spent on this world.  He'd thought about scratching marks in the side of the ship to keep count, but it seemed to be a pointless exercise, so he abandoned the idea.   
  
One morning, about mid-summer, he was lying prone on a flat rock shelf that overhung the water, attempting to shave using the clear surface of the lake as a mirror.  The knife he'd brought along was getting dull after so much abuse, and he was handicapped by only having one hand to work with.  His left arm was now all but useless, as the weakness and trembling gradually transformed into numbness and paralysis.  The left leg, too, was starting to weaken; who knew how long it would be before he could no longer walk?  He'd found a broken branch to use as a staff, which helped for the moment, but it was only a matter of time.  
  
His reflection in the water wavered for a moment, then seemed to solidify; at first he thought it was just a ripple disturbing the surface, but then realized that the image had subtly changed.  Instead of his own gaunt and ill-kempt face, the person looking back at him now was clean-shaven and vigorous, with a small, faint scar over his left eye.  Then the other winked, and he knew.  
  
_"I see our luck hasn't gotten much better,"_ the reflection said in a teasing tone of voice.  
  
John put down his knife and propped his chin on his hand.  The reflection didn't move.  "Nope," he replied easily.  "Same shit, different day."  
  
His twin in the mirror smiled.  _"And here I'd been envying_ you _for staying alive."_  
  
"Yeah, right, _you_ envied _me_...at least you got to be with Aeryn."  
  
_"And I broke her heart, remember?  I'd hoped you'd take care of her for me, that she'd have a second chance...."_  
  
"She tried -- we both did -- but sometimes you just don't get a second chance, even when there's a second _you._ "  John shook his head sadly.  "She's better off now, without me there rubbing her face in her grief.  She'll be able to heal."  John gazed at his twin's face for a moment. Hallucinations were nothing new to this screwed-up astronaut.  He knew that's what this was, but it didn't stop him from playing along.  
  
His illusory twin got a pensive look on his face all of a sudden.  _"Y'know, I've been wondering about something.  When we're both dead, do you think there'll be two John Crichton souls wandering around the afterlife, or just one?"_  
  
That idea gave him pause.  His body had been twinned, but had Kaarvok been able to duplicate souls?  Assuming such things existed, which John had always been less than totally certain about.  Was it a singular conceit of sentient beings to believe that the universe had gifted them with something that could transcend death, just because they possessed more than their fair share of brain cells?  Once upon a time, John had told Aeryn about one of the common human views of the afterlife, but he still didn't know if it was anything close to the 'truth'.  _I guess I'll find out soon enough, though._    
  
Instead of responding to the question, John asked one of his own.  It would have been rude, except that he knew he was really just talking to himself, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't take offense.  "What do you regret most?" he inquired curiously.  
  
The other didn't pause more than half a second.  _"Not getting the chance to go home, see Dad again.  And I regret all the times I hurt Aeryn, especially the last one.  How about you?  Do you regret anything?"_  
  
John didn't hesitate either.  "Not getting the chance to say goodbye to everyone.  I know it's best this way, and it will save them all a lot of pain, but it still feels like I've cheated them of something.  And maybe even cheated myself.  Closure, maybe.  I just hope I get the chance to look in on them once in a while, after."   
  
They said nothing for a moment.  The trouble with talking to yourself is you quickly run out of questions that both parties don't already know the answer to.  Finally, one of them raised a fist in invitation, and the other responded to the gesture in kind.   
  
_One, two, three._    
  
Paper and paper; tied again.  John looked up at his twin's face, expecting to see that same wry expression that had graced it in his last message, only to see his own unshaven countenance and weary eyes looking back at him once again.  Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted.  
  
He smiled, strangely amused by the whole incident.  He'd been expecting something like this; the Diagnosan had warned him that the stress his failing brain was experiencing would likely cause neurons to start misfiring at some point.  His previous experiences with hallucinations, triggered by the neural chip Scorpius had implanted in his brain, had terrified him, and with good reason it had turned out.  This time, though, he had several advantages over his past self.  He knew what was happening, for one.  He knew _why_ it was happening.  And best of all, he knew there was no one else around to get hurt if he lost it.  This time he was determined to just sit back and enjoy the ride.  _Wonder who'll show up next?  
_  
Besides, it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if it was just a figment of his own imagination.  He'd even found himself wishing he could talk to Harvey lately, much to his dismay.  Who would have believed he'd ever miss that ugly face?  The neural clone had mysteriously disappeared from his mind after the destruction of the command carrier, and had never returned.  At first John had thought Harvey was just sulking, or mourning the death of his other self, but as time passed he started to believe that the clone was truly gone.  Whatever was going wrong inside his skull, he concluded sadly, Harvey had probably been the first casualty. Since the chip that had engendered the clone had been one of the primary causes of his condition, the areas where Harvey resided would probably have been among the first to fail.  
  
It sometimes surprised Crichton that he could view these symptoms of his own deterioration with such equanimity.  He would recall D'Argo's words to him from long ago, in one of the first of their many 'hopeless' situations: "Fear accompanies the possibility of death.  Calm shepherds its certainty."  That sentiment might indeed explain his stoicism now.  Or perhaps it could be explained better by a more human saying: "Familiarity breeds contempt."  John Crichton had faced death too many times; he felt like they ought to be on a first-name basis.  The fear of it had long since been worn away by overexposure.   
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Chiana and D'Argo were keeping watch on Moya's command late in the sleep cycle, helping Pilot search for another commerce planet, since the supplies they'd acquired at the last one were dwindling.  They had been working quietly for arns, with the comfortable stillness of old friends rather than the strained silence that had been the norm in the monens after the incident with Jothee.   
  
Suddenly, Chiana gasped and flinched back from her station, nearly falling over.  D'Argo looked up at the sound and rushed to her side, calling her name.  She didn't respond for several microts, staring blankly at nothing -- or at something only she could see.  Finally she blinked and, still trembling slightly, looked up at D'Argo's concerned expression.  
  
"Chiana, what happened?" he asked.  
  
"I... I s-saw...."  
  
"What did you see?"  
  
"Crichton...I saw Crichton.  Alone...so alone...cold...dying...."  As usually happened when she tried to describe her precognitive flashes, the brief images did not translate readily into words.  
  
D'Argo, like most of the crew, still looked on Chiana's 'visions' with some skepticism, even though they seemed to prove out more often than not.  But this one -- a vision featuring someone now halfway across the galaxy -- stretched even what little belief he'd allowed himself beyond its breaking point.  
  
"Chiana," he began, his voice slightly patronizing, "John left almost a quarter of a cycle ago. He's home.  He's happy.  It's what he wanted for over three cycles. And even if he were in trouble, which I doubt, there is nothing we could do for him.  He made his choice."  
  
Chiana shook her head violently, her white hair flying in all directions, feeling deep inside that something was wrong with D'Argo's assumptions, but unable to articulate it.  He continued to support her, arms enfolding her in a way that was familiar and comforting, until she finally stopped trembling.   
  
As always, the images she'd seen faded fast, like a dream after waking.  After a few hundred microts she got up and went back to the task of searching.  The sense of urgency she'd felt gradually faded away as time passed.  When, over an arn later, D'Argo suggested to her that she not tell the others -- particularly Aeryn -- about her vision, she agreed.  It would only upset the former Peacekeeper, and D'Argo was right: even if it had been real, there was nothing they could do.  
  
Part of her, though, deep inside, still trembled in fear for John Crichton.  
  
  
  
Four solar days later, the crew was again spending a pleasant afternoon exploring the market on a commerce planet.  Jool ended up partnered with Rygel, and the pair was charged with purchasing star charts or map fibers from one of the local suppliers.  With plenty of currency still in their pockets, the only sticking point these days was the limited availability of the maps they needed to find their respective homeworlds.  The Uncharted Territories, in most cases, lived up to their name; maps were rare and valuable commodities, and what few were available tended to be highly inaccurate, too small-scale, or in other ways unhelpful to a group seeking remote destinations such as theirs.  
  
They entered one dimly-lit establishment, Jool trailing slightly behind the more experienced negotiator.  As Rygel plied the proprietor for information, she gazed idly around.  The shop owner was obviously a collector of rare objects, which he used to decorate his walls.  Jool, having received a well-rounded education before getting lost and frozen for twenty-two cycles, recognized the origins of many of the objects displayed, and was actually impressed by some of the choices.  
  
Her eyes were drawn eventually, almost against their will, to a splash of vibrant, obnoxious color in one corner.  Peering closer, she realized it was a piece of clothing, shapeless and ordinary, except for the eye-searing orange color.   What sort of tasteless being could possibly wear such a thing?  A strange white helmet hung nearby, obviously a part of the ensemble.  
  
The proprietor's assistant appeared next to her, gazing at the display in quiet rapture.  "It's one of the master's most recent acquisitions.  He only traded a single map for it, if you can believe it..."  
  
"Your master was cheated, I think," Jool sneered haughtily.  "I've never seen an uglier outfit in my life."  
  
"The value is historical, m'lady," the lackey assured her.  "They originally belonged to one of the most famous figures of recent history.  Truly unique and--"  
  
"Jool!"  Rygel called out, floating across the room towards her and interrupting whatever the helper was going to say.  "We aren't going to find the maps we need here; shall we go meet the--?"  Pulling up beside his crewmate, Rygel followed her gaze to the object of their attention.  His voice faded to silence for a moment until, finally, he managed to breathe a single word.  "Yotz!"  
  
  
  
"Rygel!  Jool!" Aeryn called out as she entered the transport pod.  "What is so _frelling_ important that you had to drag us all back here before we'd finished what we came here for?"  
  
Jool shook her head.  "Don't ask me; I was _there_ and I don’t understand what's gotten the slug so uptight."  D'Argo and Chiana, who had arrived mere microts before Aeryn, looked just as clueless.  Crais, on the other hand, was somber as he stood in a shadowed corner of the pod.   
  
"Aeryn," Rygel said gently.  "I think perhaps you should sit down."  
  
"Rygel," she growled impatiently, "just cut to the chase."  
  
Everyone in the pod blinked in surprise at her unconscious use of one of Crichton's Earthisms.  Rygel sighed.  "Aeryn, we found something at the local map dealer that I think you should see."  He nodded to Jool, who pulled the orange outfit and white helmet out of the bag she'd stuffed them into.  She couldn't believe how much the Hynerian had paid to acquire these pieces of--  
  
Aeryn's sudden intake of breath clued her in to the fact that there really was something significant here.  Looking over at D'Argo and Chi, she realized she was the _only_ one present to whom this bundle of bright cloth meant nothing.  
  
"Where... How...?"  Aeryn stuttered in shock, reaching out but not quite touching the flight suit.  
  
"According to the map seller, he traded a single map for these...less than two monens ago."  
  
Crais spoke up then, from his position by the wall.  "When the Hynerian told me what he had found, before you arrived, I contacted Talyn.  The wormhole data from the command carrier still sits untouched in Talyn's databanks.  Crichton never even accessed it, never studied it as he said he had.  Talyn never thought to mention that to me, and I never thought to ask; neither of us has had any interest in wormholes after what we saw at Dam-Ba-Da."  
  
Jool was looking from face to face for an explanation, but everyone was just looking shocked.  She quickly ran out of patience.  "Will someone tell me what the frell is going on?"  
  
"There's no reason you would know, Jool," D'Argo said quietly.  "When Crichton first arrived on Moya over three cycles ago...these are the clothes he was wearing.  He packed them away long before you came on board -- I don't know where."  
  
"In his module," Aeryn whispered, finally gaining the courage to reach out and take the suit from Jool.  "He kept them strapped behind the pilot's chair for a passenger to sit on, since the ship didn't have a second seat."   
  
D'Argo nodded.  He'd never been a passenger in the Farscape module; with his large stature, he would never have fit in the tiny space.  The last time he'd seen John's flight suit, Crichton's primitive duplicate had been wearing it, but that had been nearly two cycles ago.  Chiana would certainly remember it, though she hadn't been aboard when John first arrived; she had spent a great deal of time with that 'cave man' Crichton, and had grown rather fond of him.  
  
"Is it possible he...lost these before he left?" Chiana asked, though she feared she knew what the answer would be.  
  
Aeryn shook her head.  "No, they were still in the module when we escaped from the command carrier.  I sat on them myself."  
  
"So...what does this mean?" Jool asked.  
  
"I have no idea," Rygel sighed.  "I just thought it was something we needed to investigate.  We all thought Crichton went home, but if he never even looked at the wormhole data--"  
  
"He didn't go home," Aeryn said suddenly, with a certainty in her voice that belied the denial still on her face.  "About a monen ago, on a commerce planet...there was a man in a bar who claimed he'd sold John some food cubes just a few weekens before.  I thought he was just trying to embellish his reputation, and when I challenged him he retracted everything, but perhaps he was telling the truth."  
  
"But...why would John lie to us?  Why would he leave, if he wasn't going to Earth?" Jool wondered.  
  
Chiana swallowed nervously and glanced at D'Argo.  Before he could indicate consent or denial to her silent question, she spoke.  "I think...he may be in trouble."  
  
Everyone looked at her, startled.  
  
"A few nights ago, I had a vision.  I saw Crichton, and he...I think he was dying."  
  
Aeryn's eyes narrowed.  "And you didn't mention this, why?"  
  
D'Argo answered for her.  "I convinced her not to, Aeryn.  We assumed John was on Earth, so even if he was in trouble, there was nothing we could do for him.  And I...didn't really believe her vision was real," he admitted sheepishly.  
  
Jool had a look of concentration on her face as she pieced it all together.  "So, it's possible that Crichton is still in this part of space.  We suspect he's been to at least two commerce planets since he left, bought food cubes and a map, and may now be in trouble somewhere."  
  
"That last, at least, I have no trouble believing," Rygel grouched.  "Crichton was _always_ getting in trouble."  That drew pained looks and nervous, knowing smiles from the others.  
  
"Rygel," Aeryn said suddenly.  "Take me to this map seller of yours; if we can find out what kind of map Crichton got from him, it will help us narrow the search."  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  


 

The wind coming over the top of the mountains was chilly as John limped his way along the shore of the lake, leaning heavily on his staff.  The trees all around him were bright with autumn colors -- another strange and welcome parallel to Earth.  The beauty was both familiar and comforting.  
  
Winter was coming; at this altitude, it would come on quickly, and soon.  Maybe even tonight -- the clouds just peeking over the hilltops might herald a storm.  Possibly even one with snow, given how fast the temperature was already dropping.  It was something of a relief to have the end in sight.   
  
The decision to leave, to abandon his friends and die alone, had been hard.  But no matter how difficult it had been in the abstract, the reality was worse. He'd started getting severe headaches in the past few weeks, which were growing more frequent and more intense with every passing day. There were gaps in his memory, faces he no longer had names for.  The loneliness and the silence pressed in on all sides, offering no relief from the pain, no distraction from the ever-increasing chaos that was the remnants of his mind. He gazed out over the lake often these days, part of him wishing for Winona back in his hand, the rest grateful for his foresight in discarding her.  
  
Just ahead, Anubis trotted out of the woods and paused to watch him.  "Hey, fella," Crichton called out.  "Sorry I don't have any fish for you today.  Probably best if you start fending for yourself again, anyway."  Not that the quasi-canine had ever gotten dependent on him; the few fish scraps he'd provided weren't anything more than a tasty tidbit for the large carnivore.  Over the months, John had seen him take down a couple of deer-like creatures who came to the lake to drink, so he knew this was a serious and quite capable predator.  
  
Anubis merely watched as he hobbled by, gazing at the human's back long after he had passed.  Suddenly, he turned and looked up into the sky, tracking a strange object as it descended towards the opposite lake shore.  The sound that had alerted him was too faint for human ears, though; John just kept walking, oblivious.  
  
A hundred yards further on, John felt his left leg give way beneath him, as it had been threatening to do for weeks.  Not even his grip on the staff could keep him upright, so he fell over onto the sand about ten yards from the water's edge.  That leg had been getting progressively weaker for a long time, but now it was just a dead weight hanging off of his body.  With his left arm long since paralyzed, John found he could not get up, not even to crawl.   
  
He struggled for a few minutes, but finally just lay back and tried to get comfortable.  With the module, his food supplies, warm clothes, and campfire out of reach on the opposite side of the lake, he realized this was it.  Storm or no storm, being exposed to the cold and damp all night, without shelter or protection, would resolve things quite handily by morning.  A surge of fear came over him unexpectedly, but faded under a wash of simple relief.  Free at last.  
  
He lay quietly, watching the clouds pile up over the hills as the storm approached, the sun descend towards the horizon, and the bright leaves rain down from the alien trees, all with the intensity of one who is seeing these things for the first time.  Or for the last.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Aeryn landed the transport pod not far from Crichton's module.  This was the fourth pristine, potential colony world they had searched in the area Crichton's map would have covered; according to the map seller, that had been what Crichton was searching for.  When they had finally detected the module from orbit, Aeryn had insisted on coming down alone to speak to him.   
  
Walking into the makeshift camp, she found many signs of his long-term habitation, including a campfire still burning low, but no sign of the human himself.  Since the presence of the fire implied that he would soon return, she sat down to wait.   
  
Half an arn later, she was growing worried.  The fire was almost out, and still there was no sign of him.  A storm was rising quickly, blowing a strong, cold wind at her back.  She started to wonder if John had seen the pod land and was hiding from her for some reason.  
  
Sensing motion out of the corner of her eye, Aeryn looked up to see a large six-legged creature standing at the edge of the campsite.  It stared at her for several microts, then turned and walked a few steps away.  Stopping again, it turned its head to stare at her some more, as if it was trying to tell her something.  
  
After it repeated its performance several more times, she decided that the animal wanted her to follow.  Rising, she paced after it, trailing the creature along the shore for almost half a metra to the opposite side of the lake.  There, at last, she spotted Crichton's figure lying sprawled on the sand in the distance.  His posture was somewhat awkward, but he looked relaxed, as if he was just enjoying the view.  
  
Her guide disappeared into the woods once she had seen their quarry, so she covered the final stretch alone.  She approached him in silence, determined to make him speak first and explain himself.  
  
To her surprise, John didn't move to rise when he saw her.  He looked terrible.  With his hair and beard both long and unkempt, he was barely recognizable as John Crichton, and his entire body seemed to have shrunken into itself.  If not for the eyes, and the derelict module on the opposite shore, she might have thought she had the wrong castaway. The extent of his deterioration spoke of a bit more than simply being alone in the wilds for a few monens.  He hadn't looked nearly this far gone on his return from Aquara.  There was something wrong here.  
  
He didn't look surprised at her sudden appearance, for some reason. He let her stand there, the silence stretching out, as he just looked at her.  When he did finally speak, it was not at all what she'd been expecting.  
  
"Hey, darlin'.  Glad my swiss-cheese brain finally decided to conjure you up.  I was getting tired of arguing with DK and Scorpy."  
  
She just stood there in shock.  He thought she was a dream?  A hallucination?  What was going on?  
  
With his right hand, John reached into a pocket of his vest and pulled out a lock of dark hair, tied together.  "Thought this was all I'd have of you," he mumbled cryptically, almost too quietly for her to hear.  "It'll be nice to have you here, if only in spirit.  I'm glad I'll get to say goodbye."  
  
"John," she whispered, her voice trembling with dread, "what are you talking about?  Why are you here?"  
  
He just smiled.  "Yeah, I suppose you would ask that.  Have a seat, Aeryn.  Take a load off."  
  
"Shouldn't we go back to your camp, John?  It's getting cold."  
  
John chuckled.  "Sorry, Sunshine, ain't gonna happen.  John Crichton's coveted brain is in the final stages of turning into so much grits 'n gravy, and my leg's finally given out on me for good.  'I've fallen, and I can't get up!'"  His voice rose into a strange, creaky falsetto at that last statement, then he burst into helpless giggles.  Aeryn just stared at him, uncomprehending.  
  
John turned his laughing blue eyes towards her again, and she felt her heart lurch.  His expression was totally open, every emotion written plainly on his face with nothing held back.  Love, and joy, and sadness, and calm resignation.  
  
"Why did you come here, John?  Why did you leave me...us?"  
  
For a moment, his eyes clouded and the sadness in his expression intensified.  "Scorpy got the last laugh, Aeryn.  I killed the bastard, but not before he killed me.  Between the Chair, the chip, and the surgery, plus all the concussions, possessions, divisions, and serious mind-frells I've been through in the last three cycles, I guess it was just more than my poor human brain could take."  
  
Aeryn was frozen in shock as she finally understood what he was saying.  "When did you...?"  
  
"Selkar," John offered, correctly guessing her question.  "She found the problem while she was treating my injuries."  He looked her in the eyes with depthless sympathy.  "You'd already watched me die once; I didn't want you to go through that again.  Especially like this.  Look at me -- weak, paralyzed, hallucinating left and right.  On Moya, with you all to care for me, this could have gone on for months.  I'd have been a burden to you, putting you all at risk.  I'm getting gaps in my memory; how long would it have been before I didn't know you, any of you? The pain isn't bad yet, just the occasional headache, but it's been getting worse.  It's a lot like the Living Death, Aeryn.  If I'd stayed, eventually someone would have to decide to just put me out of my misery, and the only thing worse than having to watch me die a second time would be if you'd had to kill me yourself.  Better to come here, and let the planet do it instead.  Almost as quick, and no one else gets hurt.  I'm glad you're not really here to see this.  Better that you believe I'm alive and happy back on Earth.  What you don't know won't hurt you."  
  
Aeryn had stopped breathing at his comparison of his condition to the Living Death.  She only remembered to start again when John looked away from her, gazing instead into the distance at the approaching storm and the last rays of the setting sun.  She couldn't speak, couldn't move, as much paralyzed as Crichton himself lying on the cooling sand..  
  
"Did I ever tell you why I started the Farscape project, Aeryn?" John murmured wistfully, changing the subject at random.  Without waiting on a reply, he kept speaking.  "Space exploration is a high-prestige occupation on my world.  Rockets and space ships are the stuff dreams are made of.  Lots of kids want to grow up to be astronauts.   
  
"But those weren't my reasons.  They may have been partially DK's reasons; he was always a bit more of a publicity hound than I was, and he liked the respect he got when he told people he worked at IASA.  I think he always cared more about the recognition and funding the project would get us when it succeeded than he did about the project itself.  That was okay with me, though; he was my best friend, and he was a brilliant engineer.  We had the same dream, even if we were looking at it from different perspectives.  
  
"My dream for Farscape wasn't about what I could get from it.  It was about what I could give to the world with it. Humanity was drowning in its own success, Aeryn.  The population growing too fast, using too much, and saving too little.  Space was our one hope, or so I believed.  In space there would be limitless supplies of energy for the harnessing, resources we could use, and planets we could settle.  The Farscape project would have been a big step towards that goal."  
  
His face suddenly broke into a wry grin.  "Of course, the reason I decided to _pilot_ the experiment had nothing to do with any of that; that was just me being my usual insane-since-birth, suicidal-test-pilot self.  I went because I loved to fly, loved being in space, and didn't trust anyone else not to screw it up.  Then I got myself drop-kicked into the freakin' twilight zone; I sometimes wonder if DK managed to pull it all back together and overcome that little...setback."  
  
Aeryn almost smiled at his ironic, casual dismissal of the catastrophic accident that had dragged him away from his life and his dreams.  John continued to ramble on about whatever came to mind, through chattering teeth as the temperature continued to fall.  Shrugging out of her leather coat, Aeryn used it to cover him and provide a little warmth; he seemed to hardly notice.  She wanted to do more, to hold him in her arms, to carry him away to Moya, but the whole situation was throwing her mind into a whirl of self-contradictory impulses.  
  
"I once told D'Argo that hope was what kept me going.  Even now, that's still true, though the hopes have changed.  For a long time, I hung on to just two things, really: you and Earth.  Then I lost both, so I had to find new things to hope for.  Now, when I look forward, I find I want D'Argo to find his son again, to be able to forgive him, and to find a place to settle down and be happy and at peace. I want Jool to find her way home to see her parents; she and I had that in common, our simple desire to see our homes and families again, and I'd like her to succeed where I failed.  I hope Sparky manages to kick his cousin's ass off the throne and reclaim his title; he's still a selfish bastard, but in spite of that I think he might have the makings of a good ruler.  I even hope Pilot and Moya find themselves a nice Relgarian someday, someone who'll take them off to explore deep space when you and the rest find your own places or paths and don't need them anymore.   
  
"And as for you, Aeryn Sun, I hope you grow and blossom again, once you're done mourning the other John.  Find love, have a family if you decide that's what you want.  You deserve to be happy, even if it can’t be with me."  
  
John's voice trailed away into silence as the darkness deepened and the wind blew colder.  There was a flash of lightning, and the first drops of water struck her head as the storm moved in at last.  She could see John shivering violently and realized she needed to get him out of here and up to Moya without delay.  Somehow.  After a brief debate about picking him up and carrying him to the transport, she decided it would be faster to go get the transport herself and bring it to him.  
  
He accepted her departure with the same calm equanimity that had greeted her arrival, bidding her goodbye in a shaky, heartbreakingly sincere voice.  She ran for the transport pod as fast as she could, stumbling several times in the darkness but never slowing down.  Within a quarter of an arn, she'd taken off and re-landed the pod much closer to John's location, all the while yelling through her comms at Jool to get to the med bay and ready supplies to counteract hypothermia.  By the time she climbed out and ran back over to John again, an icy, driving rain was falling.  John was no longer shivering, and his eyes, though slightly open, did not see her.  He was still alive, but he wouldn't be for long if he stayed here.   
  
He might hate her tomorrow for taking this decision away from him.  She might, indeed, be condemning him to a far worse fate by keeping him alive. But she wasn't willing to let him just die here, no matter what he said.  Not now, not after finding him again.  She had to get him home now, get him warm and dry again, and soon.  Everything else could wait.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  


 

It was dark, and cold, and quiet.  Like floating in space, without the pain.  Even the cold no longer bothered him; it was just there.  An absence of heat,  sensory dissolution.  
  
Gradually, the silence gave way to the murmuring of distant voices.  The words meant nothing, but the tones and emotions flowed through.  Comforting.  Familiar.  
  
Argumentative.  
  
_"Jool, you have to tell me what's wrong with him."  
_  
Muffled protest, more distant, less familiar.  
  
_"...barely gotten him stabilized... realize you're worried, but hanging over me every microt is really not helpful... let me get the scanner set up...."  
_  
Third voice, deeper, curious.  
  
_"Did he tell you anything, Aeryn?"  
_  
First voice, still angry -- or perhaps frightened.  
  
_"Just that the Diagnosan we took him to when he was injured found something wrong with his brain.  He's partially paralyzed, having memory problems, and has apparently been hallucinating for some time.  He thought I was a figment of his imagination."  
_  
Deep voice again, softer tone.  
  
_"Why didn't he tell us?  We might have been able to help him."  
_  
Sadness now, not anger.  
  
_"D'Argo, he came here to die.  To spare us -- to spare_ me _\-- from having to watch it happen again."  
_  
Silence fell, no more voices.  Sinking deeper, he faded away again and let the darkness reclaim him.   
  
  
  
Full consciousness returned two solar days later, though to Crichton it felt like no time at all had passed since he'd been lying on the shore of his lake.  When he opened his eyes to see the familiar, golden-brown hues of Moya's interior walls, he figured he was still dreaming.  He was in his old quarters, and they looked just as he remembered them.  At first he thought he was alone, but when he turned his head, he saw a head of long, dark hair resting against the side of his bed.  He smiled, but didn't speak, content to just bask in her presence for however long this lasted.  
  
Somehow, the figure beside him sensed his gaze and turned, looking into his face inquiringly.   
  
"Hey, babe," he greeted Aeryn cheerfully.  "Nice place you got here.  They say your life's supposed to flash before your eyes when you die; I'm not sure this is what they meant, but I'm not gonna complain.  Never felt better, in fact."  
  
Aeryn just stared back at him, her expression tightening as she fought a wave of emotion at his careless words.  Years of Peacekeeper training fought to hold the line, wavered, and then collapsed under the onslaught of despair and nascent empathy.  Moisture pooled in her eyes, tears spilling over and streaking unchecked down her face without a sound.  
  
John screwed his eyes shut and turned away, cursing his brain for tormenting him with the one sight he'd hoped to never witness again.  Seeing Aeryn in tears -- knowing full well that John Crichton, in some incarnation, was almost certainly the cause of her pain -- tore his heart to shreds.  
  
He felt a cool hand touch his cheek -- Aeryn, probably concerned at his sudden withdrawal, reaching out to draw him back.   
  
Touch?  He'd never before been able to touch his visions -- except Harvey, but the clone had always been a bit more than a simple hallucination.  A moment later, that thought led to some realizations that finally shattered the illusion.   
  
First was the awareness that his head was hurting, a dull pounding that felt like it was trying to push his brain out through his eye sockets, and that his arm and leg were still paralyzed, all of which seemed wrong for a dream.  That led to other sensations, including certain mundane biological needs that had no business being felt in any self-respecting delusion.  
  
All of which meant... this might be real.  And if that were true...  "Ah, crap."  He'd been so close...so frelling close to freedom, to the next great adventure.  And now, it seemed, he'd been dragged back into a world of suffering and pain, and all of his careful plans were collapsing around his ears.  
  
"John?"  Aeryn's voice was worried.  Crichton was torn between anger at her for ruining his plans and overwhelming joy at being able to see her, touch her, and hear her voice again.   
  
But her presence changed nothing, he realized.  He was still dying, and nothing she or any of the others could do would change that.  He knew his friends well enough to know that they'd try.  And they'd keep trying, even after all hope was gone. As they'd tried with Zhaan.  He had hoped to spare them the effort, the pain of disappointment that came with the inevitable failure. John understood now, completely and utterly, why Zhaan had been so willing, even eager, to give her life to free Moya from the Pathfinder ship.   
  
"John?" Aeryn called to him again.  "Are you in pain?  Should I call Jool?"  
  
He just shook his head.  He didn't feel like talking, not anymore.  The signals his body was sending him were getting more insistent, and he knew that, with his leg no longer working properly, he'd need help.  Swallowing his pride, he tried to push himself over with his right arm.  "Help me up," he said tersely.  "Gotta pee."  
  
Aeryn helped him across the room to the facilities, and back again when he'd taken care of his body's needs.  He said nothing the entire time, in spite of Aeryn's tentative queries.  As he lay back down, he nodded his thanks, but still said nothing.  There was nothing to say.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
It was a somber group that gathered in Pilot's chamber later that day.  
  
"He won't talk to me," Aeryn told them.  "The microt he realized he wasn't dreaming, or dying, or whatever, he just shut down and pulled away from everything.  Jool, what did your scans show?"  
  
The young Interon shook her head.  "With the pathetic equipment we have available, I wasn't able to learn much.  There are sections of Crichton's brain that seem... dead.  They're not actually dead -- the tissue itself is still alive -- but the connections between the neural cells seem to have failed, or been interrupted.  Other parts are overactive and chaotic. But I can't tell what's causing it, so I have no way of knowing if there's any way to stop it, or fix it.  I just don't have the right tools.  Or..." she paused, uncomfortable at the admission, "...the right training."  
  
D'Argo nodded, pleased at her honesty.  "Then we need to find someone who _has_ the right equipment, and the right skills."  
  
"What about the Diagnosan who found it in the first place?  Tocot fixed his brain the last time; maybe she can, too," Chiana offered.  
  
"If she could have fixed this, don't you think she would have done so already?" Aeryn asked.  "John seemed convinced that nothing could be done."  
  
D'Argo thought for a second, then shook his head.  "John might have refused to let her help, particularly if whatever cure Selkar offered involved the use of a donor.  Or perhaps she simply could not help him at all.  And if that's true...I could almost wish, for John's sake, that we'd arrived a solar day later."  
  
"D'Argo!" Chiana gasped in horror.  "How can you say that?  John's your friend!"  
  
"Yes, he is my friend.  And as his friend, I should respect the decision he made in coming to this place.  As a fellow warrior, I do understand his reasons.  The way Aeryn described it, John was at peace, content with his fate and his life.  There are far worse ways for a man to die than that, and we may indeed have condemned him to something far worse.  If we cannot find a cure for him, and we force him to live as he is now -- helpless and in pain -- he will not thank us."  
  
"So what are you saying?" Aeryn asked in a quiet voice.  "That we should have just let him die?"  
  
"No, I don't believe he really wants to die alone, any more than I believed you when you said it three cycles ago; we have to help him, be there for him, now that the choice has been given to us.  I only hope Selkar can help, or can direct us to someone who can.  Otherwise, we may face a difficult decision later, one none of us wants to make."  
  
"We need to find help quickly, D'Argo.  We're monens away from Selkar's hospice now, if we could even find it again," Aeryn protested.  
  
"Actually," Pilot spoke up, "if I may interrupt.... Talyn has shared information about his journeys with Moya, including all his navigational data.  Our course since rejoining Talyn has been erratic and nearly random, with no specific direction and certainly not in a straight line.  If my charts are correct, I believe we have wandered back towards that area of space, and are actually not far from the system containing the medical facility.  We should be able to arrive there within less than two weekens.  Would that satisfy your needs?"  
  
The group just stared at Pilot for a moment, then Aeryn nodded.  "Quite satisfactory, thank you.  Are we all agreed?"  She looked from face to face for dissention and found none.  "Do it, Pilot.  Fast as you can."  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
"You have to eat something, Old Man, and I went to a lot of trouble to make this for you.  After eating that dren you had for so long, I'd think you'd be happy to see some real food."  
  
Crichton just shook his head slightly.  "Not hungry,  Pip."  He closed his eyes, hoping she'd get the hint and just go away.  In spite of Jool's potions, his headache was still pounding like a sub-woofer at a heavy metal concert.  Lying here day after day, unable to get up and move around without assistance, was making the walls close in on him.  He felt trapped.  
  
The crash of the tray slamming into the table startled him.  He opened his eyes just in time to see Chiana lean over and grab the front of his shirt.  "Just because you're sick, Crichton, does not give you the right to lie to me.  We went to a lot of trouble to track you down--"  
  
"Didn't ask you to," John murmured.  
  
"You didn't have to ask," she countered.  "You're our friend, Crichton.  We want to help."  
  
"Nothin' you can do."  
  
Chiana released her hold on his shirt in exasperation.  "And when has that ever stopped us?  We'll find a way.  If Selkar can't help, we'll find someone who can.  You never gave up on any of us, Crichton; we're not gonna give up on you.  But in the meantime, you have to eat, and I'm not going to give up on that, either."  
  
Eventually, he gave in and ate a little.  He hadn't been lying -- he truly wasn't hungry and didn't feel like eating -- but it wasn't worth the effort of arguing with someone as stubborn as Chi.  
  
About halfway through the meal, the young Nebari suddenly lifted her head and turned, as if listening.  "Did you hear that?" she asked.  
  
"Hear what, Pip?"  
  
"Pulse fire...I heard a shot."   
  
"Didn't hear anything; probably just your imagination."  
  
Chiana looked at him blankly for a moment, then shook her head as if to clear cobwebs.  "No, that just means it hasn't happened yet."  Without another word to John, she set the tray aside and ran for the door.  As she vanished into the corridor, he could hear her calling Pilot and the others with a warning about what she'd sensed.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
When Chiana ran into Command, she found the others already there.  
  
Pilot called from the clamshell, "I have scanned all of Moya's systems and find no indication of any intruders aboard.  All systems are functioning at optimal levels."  
  
"Chiana," D'Argo began, in a voice that sounded infuriatingly patronizing.  She didn't let him finish.  
  
"No, D'Argo, I don't care if you don't believe me, I don't care if _any_ of you believe me.  I know what I heard.  It's happened before.  And the last time it happened, Naj Gil got shot within an a few arns."  
  
Aeryn nodded.  Ever since Chiana's vision of Crichton had proved so accurate, she'd developed a grudging respect for her abilities.  "It will harm nothing if we conduct a search of the ship."  
  
"Harm nothing?" Rygel griped.  "The little tralk interrupted my meal, which is now getting cold.  The rest of you can waste time on this nonsense all you want, but I am going to--"  
  
Aeryn smacked him in the back of the head, rocking his throne sled momentarily.  
  
"--go check the cargo bays for intruders," Rygel finished in a long-suffering sigh.  
  
"I'll take quarters and the cell levels," Aeryn announced, following Rygel out into the hallway.  The others argued for several moments about who would cover what, then split up and began the search.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Left alone in his quarters, with only the pleasant, susurrant rhythm of Moya's systems breaking the silence, John lay back and sighed.   
  
"How long do you think it will be, Sweet John," Zhaan asked as she emerged from the shadows in the corner, "before they accept the inevitable?"  
  
"Months.  Years.  Maybe never," he answered sadly, gazing at the exotic blue beauty of his long-dead friend.  The hallucinations were growing more frequent and more insidious.  The night before, he'd woken to find himself surrounded by Peacekeepers, the anonymous, now-dead crew of Scorpy's carrier, all staring at him in silent accusation.  Standing among them were Larraq and Hassan, the first people he'd ever killed.  Knowing it wasn't real hadn't made the experience any less painful.  
  
As he watched Zhaan now, her figure darkened, warped, and melted into a more sinister vision.  "And do you think they will ever be able to give you what you need?" Scorpius asked.  
  
John didn't even blink at the sudden transformation.  "I don't know.  I asked D'Argo once -- a long time ago, different situation -- and he couldn't do it.  Chiana and Jool?  I love 'em both, like my kid sisters, but they'd both freak if I even brought the subject up.  Sparky?  Yeah, right....  
  
"Aeryn...Aeryn might be able to do it, when it gets bad enough.  She cares about me, I think, in spite of everything, and she understands mercy.  But I could never ask that of her, not after the other one.  It would destroy her; it's what I was trying to avoid by leaving."  
  
The figure before him transformed again, this time into the likeness of Aeryn Sun, dressed in a full Peacekeeper uniform and pointing a pulse rifle at him, her eyes cold and dead.  John started to reach out to her with his hand, only to have the image waver and dissipate into nothing.  He noticed, as if in a dream, that his raised hand -- his right hand -- was trembling.  
  
That tripped a switch in his head.  He was dying; he knew that, and had accepted it months ago.  His friends, on the other hand, were never going to accept it.  They were already wearing themselves out in a fruitless and probably dangerous search for a cure.  They were chaining themselves to a misguided sense of duty, following a mirage to something that didn't exist.  It was pointless.  
  
He felt useless lying here.  Worse than useless.  A burden to everyone.  And it was only going to get worse.  But there was still one thing he could do for them, and that trembling hand told him he had to do it soon or he wouldn't be able.  
  
Turning his head, John spotted a DRD sitting just outside his doorway, keeping an eye on him.  Beckoning the little robot over, he directed it to fetch the black duffel bag he'd long ago tossed into the corner and drag it over to him.  The bag was heavy, almost more than the little droid could move, but eventually it came within his reach.  Job completed, the DRD backed away slightly to await further instructions.  
  
Opening the bag was difficult with only one hand, especially since he couldn't turn himself over to see what he was doing.  Eventually, though, after feeling around inside the bag for what seemed like an eternity, his hand encountered the familiar hard shape it had been seeking.  He lifted it out of the bag and held it up to look at.   
  
Smooth, dark lines -- a deadly kind of beauty.  It wasn't Winona -- she was now rusting slowly at the bottom of a lake -- but this lovely lady would do him just fine.  He didn't need a long-term relationship for this.  It was the ultimate one-night-stand.  Didn't even have to know her name -- just wham, bam, thank you ma'am.  
  
He was tired.  Tired of waiting, tired of hurting, tired of watching his friends suffer because of him.  Mom would understand.  Turning the gun around and placing his thumb on the trigger, he aimed, not at his head -- his poor brain had taken quite enough abuse, thank you very much -- but at his heart.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  


 

Aeryn had just started down the second corridor of her self-assigned patrol when her coms crackled to life with Pilot's frantic voice.  "Officer Sun, get down to Crichton's quarters!  Hurry!"  
  
She broke into a sprint, not needing to even pause to think about which way to go.  "What's wrong, Pilot?" she shouted without slowing, taking the first turn at the next junction.  
  
"He has a pulse pistol, Aeryn -- I'm afraid he may harm himself!"  
  
Aeryn felt her heart freeze even as her feet pounded on.  How the frell had he managed to get a weapon?  He hadn't had one when she'd brought him aboard, and she didn't remember seeing one in his quarters.  
  
Barreling around the last curve, she flew through John's open door...and nearly skidded across the bare floor as she brought herself to a sudden stop.  John lay on his bunk, much as she'd last seen him a few arns ago, propped up slightly on a pile of pillows gleaned from other empty cells.  He did indeed have a pistol in his hand, turned exactly the wrong way, though he let it fall to his side unfired almost immediately upon her entrance.  He was glaring up at her as if put out by the rude interruption.  Aeryn opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again as she found herself unable to speak.  
  
Crichton, typically, did not have that problem.  "Aeryn," he said firmly, "go away."  
  
"No," she said.  Well, it was progress; she'd found one word she could say.  Searching around her whirling mind, she found another.  "Why?"  
  
"So you won't have to."  
  
Aeryn walked unsteadily over to him and sat on the edge of the bunk. She tried reaching for the pistol, but he pulled it out of her reach.  She gave up, not willing to risk a struggle for the weapon.  "John, we'll arrive at Selkar's hospice in less than ten solar days," she said carefully.  
  
"She can't do anything, Aeryn.  She told me that monens ago.  Now just get out of here!"  
  
She ignored the command.  "And you just took her word for it?  You didn't even _try_ to find another option?"  Aeryn's voice conveyed utter disbelief, and a touch of disappointment.  It was a tone he'd heard before, back on the Royal Planet before his ill-fated wedding to Katralla.  _Was I mistaken?  You're not the Crichton I knew?  
_  
As if that thought had been a trigger, John noticed a young girl -- his and Katralla's as-yet-unborn daughter -- standing on the other side of his bunk, reaching with childlike curiosity towards the pulse pistol.  He yanked it out of her reach and yelped, "No!" before he could stop himself. The little girl pouted at him and vanished. Another frelling hallucination, damn it.  
  
That involuntary movement, however, brought the pistol within Aeryn's easy reach.  She grabbed his arm and wrestled it away from him quickly.  It went off once in the struggle, scorching a mark into the far wall but doing no other damage.  Once she had pried the gun from his fingers, she threw it across the room like a dead rat.  
  
"Crichton, what the frell do you think you were doing?" Aeryn shouted, no longer feeling the need to tread lightly.  
  
He glared at her, eyes blazing with more anger than she'd ever seen there before.  And under the rage, buried deep, she thought she could see fear.  "I was making a choice, Aeryn!" he spat.  "My life, my decision.  It wasn't my choice to get sucked down a wormhole, or to have Peacekeepers breathing down my neck from day one.  It wasn't my choice to have the Ancients stick a bunch of New Math mumbo jumbo in my head, or have Scorpy stuff a chip in there trying to rip it out again.  And it wasn't my idea to get myself twinned, or to get left behind, or to be dying by inches now.  I didn't ask you to show up and yank me off that planet, but you did it anyway.  I haven't been in control of my own damn life for four fucking years!  Is it too much to ask that I get to make one last decision?  Can't I at least _die_ on my own terms?"  He was nearly apoplectic by the end of his rant, gasping for breath and voice straining with emotion.   
  
Aeryn caught a glimpse of D'Argo and Chiana lurking just outside John's cell.  Catching the Luxan's eye, she shook her head marginally, and he nodded.  As she turned her attention back to the human, she saw the others move softly away down the corridor, letting her handle this crisis.  
  
Gradually, as she sat by his side in silence, John's breathing evened out and his features relaxed from cold rage to something closer to despair.  His eyes were bright with moisture, but no tears fell.  
  
"John," Aeryn said softly, clasping his hand, "talk to me. I want to understand.  We want to help you; why won't you let us?  Why didn't you tell us what was wrong in the first place?"  
  
John sighed.  His outburst had drained more energy from him than he had to spare.  He felt like a hollow shell, echoing and empty, his head pounding louder than ever.  There was no anger left, so he just tried to explain as best he could.  In spite of everything, he still had trouble denying Aeryn anything she asked.  
  
"Zhaan, for one.  When she was dying, and we dragged her from world to world, looking for some miracle cure, when all she wanted was to enjoy the time she had left.  She knew it was hopeless, but we wouldn't let her go in peace; it nearly tore us apart, remember?  And I remember my grandmother, and how she looked after Grandpa died.  He'd been sick a long time, with Alzheimer's -- that's a disease very old humans get, which gradually destroys memories and personality.  Grandma cared for him for years, night and day, and by the end she was tending to a stranger who didn't know her anymore.  When he finally died, she just looked relieved.  She died herself not long afterwards, and I can't help but believe it was because of what she'd been through.  
  
"I've put you guys through so much crap in the past few cycles, Aeryn.  I don't want to sully what few good memories you might have of John Crichton by forcing you all to care for an invalid.  Hell, I don't want to _be_ an invalid; it's pretty close to my definition of hell.  I don't want to tie you down, make any of you pass up opportunities to go home or find happiness because you think you have to look after me.  That's why I left, so you could get your lives back.  And that's also why...why that," he finished, waving his hand vaguely in the direction the pulse pistol had flown.  "It'd be better for everyone if this was over quickly.  No need to prolong the agony, for any of us."  
  
"The John Crichton I fell in love with would never give up so easily."  
  
"That's just it, Aeryn -- I'm not the John you loved.  I'm the one that got left behind."  At her wince of guilt, he shook his head.  "No, I'm not angry about that.  Not anymore.  It was luck of the draw, that's all.  He got lucky in love; I got lucky in life.  At least for a little while.  I don't _want_ to die, but I've accepted that it's going to happen. It's no longer a matter of if, just a matter of when, and how.  Better quick than slow.  And better me than you."  
  
Aeryn gave a wry smile, which surprised him.  "I seem to recall," she mused, "being in much the same situation myself, once.  About three cycles ago, I think.  I was dying, I knew it, and I knew nothing could be done to stop it.  I tried to get to my prowler, to fly away and die alone as I'd been taught, but someone wouldn't let me.  Someone refused to let me give up, refused to accept the verdict of fate."  
  
The hands gripping John's tightened nearly to the point of pain.  "John, you _are_ the man I fell in love with.  I have no intention of letting you go without a fight.  We're going to find a way to heal you, somehow, somewhere.  I won't give up on you, any more than you ever gave up on me."  
  
John just gazed at her sadly for a moment, then turned away, refusing to let himself believe in anything, not even hope.  He closed his eyes, praying to every god and goddess he'd ever heard of that he could just go to sleep and never wake up again.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
During the next ten solar days, Aeryn hardly ever left John's side.  When he was feeling well enough, she could sometimes goad him into talking, though never about anything serious.  When the pain was bad, or the hallucinations became too much to bear, she simply held his hand and lent him her strength.   
  
At other times, though, he would sink into a black depression and refuse to eat, or break into a manic rage and try to drive her away with insults and verbal abuse. Both of these states were so entirely unlike him that Aeryn finally gave in and consulted with Jool.  The young Interon expressed her opinion that the damage in John's brain was causing chemical imbalances, which in turn were the cause of these violent mood swings.  There was nothing she could do.  Aeryn endured it all, far more patiently than even she would have thought possible.  
  
One evening, about two solar days from the Diagnosan's system, the entire crew gathered together in Crichton's quarters -- taking advantage of one of John's lucid periods -- to discuss plans and contingencies.  After a fair amount of arguing in circles, Jool spoke up and suggested, in a surprisingly subdued manner, that if Selkar could do nothing for the ailing human, their next best hope might be to find the Interon homeworld.  This was not solely for herself, she assured them -- though she would be glad to see her home again -- but because Interon and human physiology were so similar.  Her people might know a way to help Crichton.  
  
Chiana and Rygel snorted in disbelief, both of them unable or unwilling to believe that her idea was anything but purely self-serving.  Their derision was interrupted by an unexpected voice.  
  
From his prone position on the bunk, even weakened as he was, John managed to slap both of them down.  "Pip, Sparky, put a sock in it.  Jool's got a good point.  Her motives are irrelevant; the idea is a good one. In fact," he continued, "we might as well start searching now.  I know for a fact that Selkar can't do anything."  
  
John had hardly spoken three words to anyone except Aeryn since arriving back on board -- they'd held the meeting here more as a gesture, to make him feel like part of the crew again, not because they expected him to join in the discussion --  so his sudden outburst shocked everyone into silence.  
  
In spite of John's arguments, though, the rest voted unanimously to continue to the Diagnosan's hospice as planned.  If that didn't pan out, and if Selkar had no other suggestions, then they would consider searching for Jool's home planet.  Ignoring the human's exasperated objections, they adjourned the meeting.  
  
Alone among all of them, only Aeryn, who had heard John's litany of hopes back on the planet, thought she understood the reasons for his enthusiastic support of Jool's plans.  Once they were alone, she turned to him.  "John, do you really think Jool's people can help, or are you just using it as an excuse to get her home?"  
  
John grimaced, looking a bit sullen.  "I'm not sure if they can help or not -- I don't think _anyone_ can help -- but they're as good a choice as any, given the similarities between our species.  Jool's right about that.  Either way, though, it would be nice if we could manage to get at least one of us home."  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Upon their arrival, Moya's crew invited Selkar and her assistant aboard the ship to examine Crichton again and render a verdict.  
  
John almost smiled at the feeling of deja vu when the translator said exactly what John had been telling them all along.  "We are sorry, but there is still nothing the doctor can do.  There is simply not enough information available on his species to reconstruct the damaged areas as they should be.  Any attempt in the absence of data would almost certainly make the situation worse."  
  
Moya's crew looked crestfallen. Even Rygel.  
  
"Too bad we can't get Scorpy in here to consult," John quipped darkly.  "That bastard was probably the greatest expert on the human brain this side of Earth."  
  
Most of his friends just grimaced at the gallows humor, but Aeryn froze in place at his words, as if she'd been struck.  She stood like that for several microts, then, without a word, she grabbed Crais by the upper arm and dragged him from the room.   
  
Everyone watched her go, then turned to Crichton as if requesting an explanation.  "Don't look at me guys," he said, completely nonplussed.  "The males of my species gave up trying to understand women a long time ago."  
  
  


 

  
Half an arn later, while D'Argo and Jool were deep in conversation with Selkar about locations of other medical facilities that might have answers the Diagnosan lacked, Aeryn ran back into the room wearing a tense, hopeful expression.  She marched straight up to Selkar and handed her a data crystal.  
  
"What...this?" the Diagnosan trilled, bypassing her translator.  
  
"I believe that crystal contains all the information you will need to help John."  
  
That announcement brought exclamations of disbelief from everyone; it took several dozen microts of overlapping questions before they all calmed down enough to allow Aeryn to explain.  
  
She addressed her explanation to John himself, who had been lying quietly to one side and letting events just wash over him.  "When you mentioned Scorpius, I suddenly remembered the wormhole data that Talyn stole from his command carrier just before it was destroyed.  Crais and I went aboard to pull the files from Talyn's data banks, and my suspicions were confirmed: filed away amongst all of Scorpius' wormhole research was the complete record of your sessions in the Aurora Chair from three cycles ago.  That includes detailed maps that the Chair compiled of your neural pathways.  It should be exactly what Selkar needs; specific information on an undamaged human brain -- _your_ brain -- before the chip, the surgery, or anything."  
  
Crichton was speechless.  Almost against his will, a flood of emotion welled up from inside him, feelings he almost didn't recognize.  After repressing everything for so long, all at once his emotional barriers fell away and he collapsed into tears.  Aeryn held him for a long time as he wept, unashamedly, releasing long-suppressed fear and grief and anger in a flood of hope.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Regaining consciousness this time was nothing like before.  He opened his eyes in dizzy disorientation and found himself blinking groggily up at an unfamiliar gray ceiling.  There was nothing familiar to latch onto at first.  
  
It took several long minutes to reconstruct his memories of the past several days. He remembered clearly the moment when he'd learned that Selkar might be able to help after all.  The surge of hope, relief, and release.  The realization a quarter of an arn later that he was getting Aeryn's vest all soggy crying on her shoulder.  
  
And then the waiting had begun, to find out if Selkar's analysis would confirm what Aeryn had assumed: that the information would indeed be exactly what she needed.  After a few arns, the Diagnosan's translator had called back up to Moya with the news that, yes, it might be enough, but that there was still a problem: she needed a donor.  
  
John had forgotten about that requirement until then, and vehemently refused to participate in anything that would 'use up' a donor.  It took some time before he calmed down enough for the Diagnosan to clarify.   
  
For one thing, the translator insisted, Selkar followed a stricter ethical code than the last Diagnosan they'd met had.  Tocot's use of frozen-but-still-living creatures as donors was frowned upon by the rest of their race, to say nothing of the fact that either Tocot or Grunchlk had apparently been hijacking healthy people like Jool into their collection.  These attitudes had made Tocot into a renegade, which was why such a "renowned physician" as he had claimed to be had been operating alone on a deserted backwater ice planet in the first place.   
  
In any case, though, the issue was irrelevant.  This surgery would not require any tissue donations -- just a small amount of cerebral fluid, to replace losses during the operation, something that could harmlessly be taken even from a living person. Selkar's problem was that she had no compatible species in her repository of fresh corpsicles, and since there were no other humans available....   
  
John hadn't been able to hear most of the 'negotiations' that took place up in command, when D'Argo reminded everyone that Interons and humans were compatible, at least in the ability to cross-donate cerebral fluid.  He suspected that Jool had been reluctant; she was still somewhat bitter over the deaths of her cousins.  But whatever D'Argo had said to her, or threatened her with, she eventually agreed to help.  
  
Selkar had been wary, even after that was settled, unwilling to promise much more than an attempt.  This operation, she'd warned, might kill him.  If he survived, it was possible she might not be able to stop the deterioration, or might stop it but be unable to repair all the damage that had already been done.  
  
Much of the rest was a blur; his condition had deteriorated rapidly after that, almost as if racing against the potential cure.  The last was a vague memory of lying on a table, under a green light.  Did that mean it was done?  If so, it seemed he'd survived, despite the Diagnosan's less-than-optimistic predictions.    
  
No pain, that was a good sign; his headaches had become nearly constant in the last few days before the operation, and nothing had seemed to help.  He knew without looking that there would be no marks, no stitches, no outward signs of the surgery.  Gotta hand it to those Diagnosans -- they did good work.   
  
His head felt clearer than it had in months, which was another good sign.  But when he tried to move his left arm, nothing happened.  Same with the leg.  His right arm responded well, fortunately, and was free from the trembling that had begun to plague it.  But half of his body was still off-line, probably forever.  
  
Before he really had a chance to digest that, the door behind him swooshed open and he heard multiple footsteps approaching.  Selkar and her translator appeared on one side of his bed; Moya's crew clustered together on the other side.  
  
"Hey guys," he said to his friends.  
  
"Sir Crichton?" the translator queried.   
  
Turning, John realized distractedly that he'd never learned the translator's name.  Well, now seemed like a poor time to bring it up, so he simply said, "Yeah?"  
  
"Now that you are awake, Selkar would like to determine the extent of your recovery thus far."  
  
"Well," he started, looking uncomfortably at Aeryn and the others, "I'm feeling better than I have in a while, so there's at least some improvement.  Still can't move my arm or leg, though, so I guess that part didn't work.  Is the problem fixed, or am I gonna relapse?"  
  
The translator looked distressed, until Selkar started speaking quickly and urgently.  After a moment, he turned back to Crichton.  "Selkar would like me to reassure you, sir Crichton.  The operation went far better than she expected, and she believes she has repaired all the damage that your brain had suffered.  It will take some time for all the repaired pathways to re-establish themselves, however, but you should regain the feeling and the use of your limbs with time and practice."  Selkar spoke again briefly, and he nodded.  "The doctor suggests that you remain here for a weeken or two for the initial recovery; we have some excellent physical therapy specialists on staff here.  After that, your friends can likely provide any assistance you may need."  
  
"Fine," John said briefly, too stunned to be more eloquent.  His relief was palpable; he really hadn't been looking forward to tooling around the Uncharted Territories in an extra-large version of Rygel's hover chair.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Aeryn strode down the hall of the medical facility towards Crichton's room, hoping that this time she could get him to really talk to her.  He'd been here for eight solar days now, learning to walk again, and in all that time she hadn't managed to get more than a few words from him.  As she reached the door, she heard voices and paused just outside.  
  
"You can _not_ be serious," D'Argo's deep voice rumbled.  
  
"As a heart attack, D," John replied.  "Here, help me up, would ya?"  There were muffled sounds of movement from within.  
  
"I do not want you to leave again, John."  
  
She'd been about to enter the room and join them, but at that, Aeryn froze.  _Leave?_  
  
John grunted with effort, probably trying to walk around a bit with the Luxan's assistance.  "D'Argo, it's not exactly an easy decision for me, either."  
  
"Where would you go?"  
  
"Well, as soon as I'm healthy again, going home has its attractions.  Between what's in my head and what's in the files Talyn snurched, I might be able to figure out how to do it one of these days.  I probably won't fit in there any better than I do here -- not anymore -- but at least I'd get to see my dad again, and there's a whole shitload of things I could teach people on my world now.  Someday the Peacekeepers, or the Scarrans, or the Nebari, or someone equally as nasty could stumble across Earth, and I'd like humanity to have a fighting chance."  
  
"I don't think Aeryn would want you to leave."  
  
"Subtle, D, real subtle," John chuckled.  "I don't want to leave Aeryn, either.  I love her; I always will.  I'd like nothing better than to spend the rest of my life with her.  But it's not in the cards anymore.  She and the other guy had something I can only dream about, and then she lost him.  The last thing she needs now is a living, breathing reminder of him wandering around Moya's halls and bumping into her day after day."  
  
D'Argo sounded confused.  "But before you left, the last time, I thought you and she had...that you were..."  He trailed off.  
  
"We were, yeah.  It was a mistake.  It wasn't ever gonna last, even if I'd stayed. It was like she was sleeping with a ghost, y'know?  Half the time she could barely look at me, and the other half I'm pretty sure it wasn't _me_ she was seeing.  I realized pretty quick that I was doing her more harm than good by...damn it, D, watch the furniture, would ya?  I'm just getting the hang of this walking thing again, and I really don't need to break my foot."  
  
Aeryn just heard D'Argo growl in mock annoyance as she turned and walked slowly away.  
  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
  
Ten days later, John was back aboard Moya, limping around her endless tiers and passageways with the aid of a cane and a lot of stubbornness.  He was growing convinced that Aeryn was avoiding him for some reason; he hadn't caught even a glimpse of her since before he left the hospital.  
  
When he wasn't exercising his recovering limbs, Crichton was putting his reconstructed mind to the test trying to analyze the massive amount of data Talyn took from the command carrier.  So far, he wasn't having much luck, so he was heading up to the terrace in hopes that the scenery would help inspire greater insights.  
  
He was breathing hard when he arrived; he'd lost a lot of stamina during his long illness.  Pretty soon, he knew, he'd need to get back into a serious exercise regimen.  There was a lot of work to be done, and the sooner he was ready to go, the better it would be for Aeryn and everyone.  
  
For the next arn, he sat cross-legged on the floor of the terrace, alternately looking at the billions of stars strewn across the wide vista and studying incomplete wormhole equations on a portable data unit.  Her approach was so silent, and his attention so focussed, that he didn't hear her come in or realize he had company until a fat sheaf of paper slapped onto the deck beside him.  
  
Glancing only briefly at the booklet -- it was his notebook, the second one, which he'd been sure he'd misplaced somewhere -- he turned to look up at Aeryn's strained features.  _Oh hell,_ he thought, _here it comes._ He felt himself bracing, as if for a blow, though he couldn't have said why.  
  
Aeryn said nothing for a long moment, then stepped over and sat down in front of him, mirroring his posture.  She picked the data unit off of his lap, shut it off, and set it aside without a word.  
  
_OK, babe, you've got my full and undivided attention._   More to break the silence than anything, John reached out and retrieved his notebook, flipping idly through the pages, and asked, "Where'd you find it?"  
  
"In your quarters," Aeryn whispered.  "After you...left.  I've read some of it."  
  
"That's o--you've what?" John broke off in disbelief.  Microbes did nothing for written language; how could she read English?  
  
Aeryn smiled slightly, with a hint of pride.  "Before he died, John was teaching me how to read -- and thus how to _speak_ \-- his language.  We didn't get very far -- just the symbols, sounds, and a few simple words.  When I found this, I decided to teach myself, and eventually I managed a bit more.  I couldn’t read everything -- I remember John telling me that a lot of the rules of his language were strange and complex, and there were many words I could not decipher -- but I managed enough to get the sense of much of it.  I hope you don't mind.  You were gone, and I.... it was a way to have a connection with you."  
  
"No, I don't mind," he assured her, though he was pretty sure there were things written in those pages that he wouldn't have wanted her to read.  Private things.  He'd started making his first notebook not long after the batteries in his tape recorder gave out, as a way to focus his scattered thoughts during the long months of anxiety as Scorpy's chip whittled away at his mind.  He'd taken to making star charts, and giving the stars silly names, as something of a game for himself.  
  
The original one had gone to Talyn with the other Crichton, and had either been lost or, more likely, been retained as a memento by the woman sitting across from him now.  He'd never asked.  The one he now held was the one he'd started after they were gone.  There were no star charts in this one, just notes on wormhole physics and letters he'd probably never get to send.  Therapy for the long months that Aeryn had been away, as he tried to keep from going out of his mind with worry for her.  
  
"I don't want you to leave," Aeryn said suddenly, breaking into his reverie.  He turned back to her, startled, and she explained.  "I overheard you talking to D'Argo the other day, telling him about your plans."  
  
"Is that why you've been avoiding me?" John asked.  
  
"Yes.  It's probably fortunate for you that I was, at least at first.  I was angry, and if I had encountered you too soon I'm afraid I might have caused more damage for Selkar to repair."  
  
"But not now?"  
  
She shook her head.  "There will be no need for me to hurt you as long as you'll do the sensible thing and listen to me."  
  
John snickered softly at the implied threat, though he was sure -- fairly sure, anyway -- that it was an empty one.  Then he looked at Aeryn's eyes again.  _Or maybe not...._  
  
Okay.  He'd known he was going to have this conversation sooner or later -- he had no intention of sneaking off without a word this time like he'd done before -- but he'd been hoping for later.  _Lots_ later.  "Aeryn, it's really best for everyone if I make myself scarc--"  
  
He was cut off when Aeryn calmly reached over and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.  He had a sudden flashback to Chiana doing the same thing not long ago, and wondered if the universe was trying to tell him something.  "I _said_ you're going to listen to _me_ for once, human," Aeryn said in a tone that brooked no back-talk.  _Damn,_ he thought, _she's starting to sound like my mother._ He just nodded, and she released him.  
  
"I heard what you told D'Argo.  Probably the main reason I was so angry was because I knew you were right."  
  
Crichton raised his eyebrows, as if to say, _I was?  Wow.  Quick, alert the media!_  
  
She ignored him, now caught up in her own memories.  "After John died, and my mother died -- again -- right before my eyes, I decided that I could never allow myself to love again, that the Peacekeepers had been right and emotions were nothing but unwanted baggage.  So when we got back to Moya, I did my best not to allow myself to feel anything.  The pain was just too great, and I couldn't face the possibility of having it happen again."  
  
John just nodded, understanding Aeryn's need for his silence; she was walking on a knife's edge of control here, to be speaking of all this without breaking down.  
  
"But I couldn't do it.  Seeing your face -- his face -- every day...working side-by-side with you... knowing what you were going to say before you said it...it was all so familiar.  I guess I started to think that I could make things the way they had been, by pretending that you and he were the same person. I should have known I wouldn't be able to fool you as easily as I  fooled myself."  
  
John decided it was time to speak, and damn the consequences.  "You weren't totally wrong, Aeryn.  We were the same person, in the beginning.  Same life, same memories, same experiences.  Neither one of us wanted to admit it at the time -- too attached to the idea of being unique, I guess.  But after all those months apart, he and I _were_ different people."  
  
Aeryn nodded.  _Well, at least she didn't take my head off for talking,_ John mused.  
  
After a moment, Aeryn said, "On Talyn, John showed me the star charts in your notebook, and the star he always named after me.  His 'guide', he said.  The center of his universe, there on almost every page.  
  
"After you left, and I found your replacement notebook, I started to realize just how different you and he had become while I was gone.  There were no stars in there, not one."  
  
"Nope," John agreed.  He'd never really wondered about the reasons for that.  It had just...happened that way.  
  
"You lost your guiding star when I left, so you had to find another.  A goal.  A purpose.  Because John Crichton is not the kind of man who can wander through life without something to strive for.  In a strange way, your leaving then was probably a good thing; it forced me to stop pretending.  
  
"I understand now.  You're not the John Crichton who helped Talyn escape from the budong, or the one who held me while I grieved for a mother I both hated and loved, or the one who died a hero at Dam-Ba-Da.  But you are the John Crichton I fell in love with all those cycles ago.  The one who risked his life to save mine by going to the gammak base, made love to me for the first time on the Ancients' illusory Earth, and clung to me for support when everything around him and inside him was falling into chaos.  You are still that man, John Crichton."  
  
"So what are you saying, Aeryn?  That my presence no longer causes you pain?  Can you honestly say you can look at me and not be reminded of my twin?" John wondered.  
  
The woman across from him smiled.  _Smiled._ "No, John, I can't say that.  I will always remember him, and always love him.  But I know now -- really _know_ \-- that you aren't him.  Someone once told me that emotional pain was like a badge of honor.  He said that even though every loss would hurt as badly as the first, the pain was worth it for all of the good days you shared before it hurt.  It made no sense to me at the time, but I think I'm finally starting to understand what he meant.   
  
"Losing John hurt so terribly that it almost killed me.  I wanted to die myself, for a while.  But thinking back on it now, I find I wouldn't want to give up the time we had together, not even to avoid that pain.  The good times were indeed worth everything.  
  
"When you left, the last time, I realized that losing you hurt just as much as losing him, though it was a small comfort to believe you were still alive somewhere.  What was worse, though, was that I had the pain all over again, and so few good times to remember.  
  
"Seeing you will always remind me of the other John, and it may hurt for a long time.  But if you leave, it will hurt even more.  You said you wanted to leave to spare me pain; I'd expect nothing less from you.  But leaving will not spare me anything.  I would rather suffer the small pangs of reminder when I see you than have you gone.  Maybe, one day soon, we can start building some good times of our own."  
  
"And you're willing to risk having me die on you again?" John asked.  Aeryn's intent words were burrowing deep, wakening desires and dreams he'd tucked away for so long, but he was still wary.  Once burned....  
  
"Are you?  I died once before, and I came back at great cost.  I could see how much my death had hurt you in your eyes when you saw me again.  I think Dregon was right: being in love is worth the risk."  
  
John was silent for a long time, and Aeryn watched him, enjoying the play of thoughts and emotions across his expressive face.  Finally, though, she got impatient.  "So, am I going to have to hurt you?"  
  
John's eyes darted up to her face, startled, only to find her dark eyes twinkling in amusement, reflecting all of the stars overhead.  He chuckled.  "No, I think we can bypass the 'kicking John Crichton's ass' portion of the evening.  Sorry to disappoint you."  
  
"You'll stay?" she asked, wanting confirmation.  
  
John nodded.  "Yeah, you've talked me into it.  That was quite a speech, Babe; you should go into politics."  
  
The other one had once made a similar comment about Crais after the incident with the Collartas, saying something about him being able to 'sell eyesgreem to eskeemous', whatever that meant.  She'd asked for an explanation and gotten a long, mostly incomprehensible lecture on the governing system in his area of Earth.  She hadn't understood much, but enough to know that John's comment was not exactly a compliment.  Reaching out with one arm, she shoved Crichton just hard enough to tip him over onto his back.  
  
"Hey!" he yelped in surprise, then burst out laughing.  "What was that for?"  
  
"I am _not_ going into politics!" she stated firmly, but the twinkle in her eyes was even brighter than before.  
  
Instead of getting up, Crichton just rolled over and lay on his side, facing Aeryn, with his head propped up on one hand.  "I'll stick around, Aeryn, if it's that important to you.  Anything more...well, we'll have to see.  I think we both need to take things slow."  
  
_Be smart,_ they both heard a ghostly voice say, almost too clearly to be a mere memory.  
  
_Thanks, John,_ the living Crichton thought, gazing across the open space at the woman he loved.  _I think I finally am.  
_  
  
The End  
  
  
  
_I hold it true, whate'er befall;  
I feel it, when I sorrow most;  
'Tis better to have loved and lost  
Than never to have loved at all.  
            -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A. H. H."  
_  



End file.
